Ex-Merrill Lynch Gold Traders Found Guilty in Spoofing Trial

Prosecutors scored another win in the U.S. crackdown on market “spoofing” when two former traders at Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Lynch unit were convicted on fraud charges for manipulating precious-metals futures.

Edward Bases and John Pacilio were found guilty by a federal jury in Chicago on Wednesday for illegally flooding the market with buy and sell orders they quickly canceled to move gold, silver or platinum prices in the direction they wanted from 2008 to 2014. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with canceling orders, both men were accused of intentionally defrauding other traders.

“They did it to make ...